The Chinese ‘mud dragon’ that helped change the world? Spiky, armoured worm that lived half a billion years ago may unriddle Cambrian explosion
Scientists discover ancient species of worm in China’s Sichuan that may have just preceded evolutionary event when life exploded on planet earth.
A recently discovered worm whose ancestors have been dubbed “mud dragons” may have been deaf and blind, but it shows how even tiny prehistoric invertebrates could be intimidating when Mother Nature wanted them to be.
A team of Chinese researchers found the fossilised remains of Eokinorhynchus rarus, which is believed to have lived on the seabed around 535 million years ago, in southwestern China’s Sichuan province, an area famous more for its pandas than creepy crawlies or crustaceans.
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But E. rarus ranks as one of the earliest heavy-armoured worms in the planet’s history.
It lurched in the cold and dark mud half a billion years ago with a body full of armour and spikes, and a mouth full of fangs to swallow anything that got in its way. It thrived in the deepest oceans and also on sandy beaches.
It measured just 2 millimetres, making it shorter than a grain of rice and meaning it was only able to prey on tiny organisms like algae.
Yet daunting as they may have looked to similarly sized creatures, its spikes were not designed to maim or kill but rather help it move faster, according to its discoverers in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports.
In fact, E. rarus would most likely have been very timid, they said.